Roman Bread and circuses – or Roman candles?

Are we re-living Gibbon’s classic?  Bloomberg talks about Bread and Circuses:

In the fifth century, the Roman political elite began searching for ways to distract its population from the hopelessness…. Bread and circuses postponed the ultimate fall ….The U.S. government’s version of bread… proliferated throughout the fiscal crisis…with a massive financial bailout…an endless supply of paper money, along with the rest of the seemingly endless sustenance being shoved down America’s throat.

Meanwhile, the administration hasn’t yet tackled the most pressing issue: job creation. …Even more unsettling is the government’s inability to fix the financial crisis.

In fascism and in communism, the government ‘creates’ jobs because it owns all the resources in the economy that would employ people. Until/unless the government is one of those two systems, it can only enact policies that encourage hiring. Shouting at companies to start hiring while taking more of their bottom line away doesn’t seem to be working very well – it’s like living with a bipolar parent – or as Pirates’ Cove notes, an adult with the economic experience  of a 5 year old.

An article from The Telegraph “Chinese Death Trap” shows how delicate a dance the administration must play given our deficit, who’s buying Treasuries, and the trade gap with China. If Obama thought healthcare was tough, try negotiating with a debt holder who takes a 5000 year view of worldwide strategy with many voices in your ear (unions, Krugman) encouraging a ‘tough stance’ towards China’s currency/trade imbalances – but you need them to buy more of your debt …  note again from Bloomberg: “the Chinese continue to use their new wealth to buy energy….assets”

Guess what Obama can open up access to ? UPDATE: Now on Michelle Malkin and Hot Air

“President Barack Obama was expected to give a speech about energy security on Wednesday, which could include his views on expansion of offshore drilling…Obama, who wants Congress to move a stalled climate change bill, has sought to reach out to Republicans by signaling he is open to allowing offshore drilling“

It might be throwing bread to China – he isn’t specific about whether ‘energy security’ really means we secure our debt to China by letting THEM drill. This may be just a circus – performance art head-fakes that he hopes will get the Chinese off his back, and get the Republicans voting for cap and trade – hoping they can be fooled again.  Republicans did vote for the first stimulus (“fooled them once”), and even voted for the second “jobs bill” (“fooled them twice”). UPDATE: Gee, Michele Malkin says the same thing? hmmmm

I will say, I do prefer a performance-art head fake circus over circuses experts like Krugman recommend.   Financial Times “some of America’s most prominent economists are claiming that a revaluation of the renminbi vis-à-vis the dollar would …create more than 1m jobs in the US …. Economists should know better….Washington’s scapegoating of China could take the world to the brink of a very slippery slope. It would not be the first time that political denial was premised on bad economics”.

We’d go from Roman bread & circuses to a worldwide Roman candle…bright loud, and explosive.